Digital collections

Sears, Roebuck and Company Catalog Collection, 1929-1980.

104 vols. (19.5 linear feet).Call no.: RB 020

Sears, Roebuck and Company were pioneers in the concept of the mail order catalog. Beginning in 1894, company founder Richard Sears began sending thick catalogs offering a wild profusion of consumer goods, ranging from clothing and kitchen goods to toys, bicycles, furniture, and even homes themselves. With an affordable price tag, the catalogs became a staple in many homes, particularly in rural settings and locations with limited access to stores. Changes in the retail market and the country’s demographics led Sears to end publication of its “big book” catalogs in 1993, although the company continues to issue specialty and seasonal catalogs.

This collection contains over one hundred seasonal catalogs issued by Sears from its stores in Boston between 1929 and 1990.

Subjects

Department stores

Mail-order business

Types of material

Shreve and Earl Account Book, 1807-1809.

In the first decade of the nineteenth century, the firm of Shreve and Earl operated in Burlington County, New Jersey, trading in a range of sundries from molasses, sugar, and butter to fabrics and spices. They also sold large quantities of liquor, suggesting that they may have operated as wholesalers of whiskey and spirits.

Kept in standard double column format, the Shreve and Earl account book documents two years of a fairly extensive retail operation, probably located in Burlington County, N.J. The principals in the business are possibly Alexander Shreve (1769-1854), husband of Mary H. Earl, and his son Joshua, along with Alexander’s brothers-in-law Thomas and Caleb Earl. Several accounts are notable for the relatively large quantities of alcohol recorded: of 33 entries for Reuben Gauntt, for example, 29 are for either whiskey or spirits and one for molasses and coffee.

Subjects

Types of material

Ephraim Snow Daybook, 1822-1878.

1 vol. (0.25 linear feet).Call no.: MS 198 bd

This unique double entry daybook, dated 1822-1878, offers an intimate glimpse into the lively shipbuilding and whaling village of Mattapoisett as these industries peaked and begin to decline. The book chronicles the labor, poetry, drawings, and letters of Ephraim Snow, a true Jack of all trades, who performed multifarious repairs, odd jobs, carpentry, and ship finish work and took boarders in his home. Interspersed throughout the accounts are pen and ink drawings and romantic poetry and letters, often replete with social commentary.

Subjects

Mattapoisett (Mass.)--Social conditions

Contributors

Snow, Ephraim

Types of material

Social Change Collection, 1953-1980.

4 boxes (2 linear feet).Call no.: MS 457

Miscellaneous manuscripts and documents relating to the history and experience of social change in America. Among other things, the collection includes material relating to the peace and antiwar movements during the 1960s, the conflict in Vietnam, and the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).

William B. Stetson Account book, 1856-1870.

As a young man in Shutesbury, Massachusetts, William B. Stetson (b. ca.1836) earned a living by performing manual labor for local residents. Most of his work, and increasingly so, was found in the range of tasks associated with lumbering: chopping wood, sawing boards, making shingles and fence boards. By 1870, Stetson was listed in the federal census as a lumberman in the adjacent town of Leverett.

Stetson’s rough-hewn book of accounts provides detail on the work and expenditures of a young man from Shutesbury, Massachusetts, in the years just prior to the Civil War. Carefully kept, but idiosyncratic, they document a working class mans efforts to earn a living by whatever means possible, largely in lumber-related tasks. His accounts list a number of familiar local names, including Albert Pratt, Sylvanus Pratt, Charles Pratt, Charles Nutting, E. Cushman, John Haskins, and J. Stockwell. Set into the front of the volume are a set of work records dated in Leverett in 1870, by which time Stetson had apparently focused his full energies on lumbering.

Subjects

Leverett (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th century

Lumber trade--Massachusetts--Leverett

Lumber trade--Massachusetts--Shutesbury

Shutesbury (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th century

Contributors

Stetson, William B.

Types of material

Stock Certificate Collection, 1820-1910.

1 box (0.25 linear feet).Call no.: MS 477

Collection of stock certificates and bonds, nearly all illustrated with an engraved vignette showing a scene relating to the company’s activities. Issued from the early 1800s to the early 1900s, a total of 47 different certificates. These include certificates for insurance companies, banks, bridge companies, coal companies, dispatch and transit companies, several early American cities, real estate, construction, early automobiles, and a company manufacturing agricultural implements.

Subjects

Business--History--19th century

Business--History--20th century

Types of material

George Stocking Account Book, 1815-1850.

The shoemaker George Stocking was born on May 23, 1784, on his family’s farm in Ashfield, Mass., the second son of Abraham and Abigail (Nabby) Stocking. At 25, George married Ann Toby (1790-1835) from nearby Conway, with whom he had nine children, followed by two more children with his second wife, the widow Mary Jackson Shippey, whom he married on Dec. 16, 1840. George succeeded Amos Stocking, his uncle, in the tanning and shoemaking business at Pittsfield, Mass., where he died on Christmas day 1864.

George Stocking’s double column account book documents almost 35 years of the economic activity of a shoemaker in antebellum Ashfield, Massachusetts. Although the entries are typically very brief, recording making, mending, tapping, capping, or heeling shoes and boots, among other things, they provide a dense and fairly continuous record of his work. They also reveal the degree to which Stocking occasionally engaged in other activities to earn a living, including mending harnesses and other leatherwork to performing agricultural labor. The book includes accounts with Charles Knowlton, the local physician was was famous as a freethinker and atheist and author of Fruits of Philosophy, his book on contraception that earned him conviction on charges of obscenity and a sentence of three months at hard labor.

Types of material

John Stone Account Book, 1836-1842.

John Stone appears to have been a storekeeper in North Dennis, Massachusetts in the 1830s and 1840s. He also dealt in lumber, wood products, and building materials.

This volume represents a number of miscellaneous accounts, and because there are no page numbers, the exact nature of the book is difficult to discern and information is difficult to extract. Starting at the front, a more or less complete list of the accounts includes: cost of loads of lumber, 1837-1840; accounts with individuals, 1837-1840; invoice of goods, 1839; bills not paid, 1840-1841.

Subjects

Lumber trade--Massachusetts--North Dennis

Merchants--Massachusetts--North Dennis

North Dennis (Mass.)--History

Types of material

Noah Lyman Strong Account Book, 1849-1893.

Operator of a sawmill and gristmill in Southampton, Massachusetts, later an owner of tenements and other real estate in Westfield, Massachusetts. Includes lists of gristmill and sawmill products, the method and form of payment (cash, barter for goods, or services such as sawing or hauling), real estate records, and miscellaneous personal records (school, clothing, board, and travel expenses for his niece and nephew; accounts for the care and funeral of his father-in-law and the dispensation of his estate; a Strong family genealogy; town of Westfield agreements and expenses; a list of U.S. bonds that Strong bought; and money lent and borrowed, among others).

Subjects

Barter--Massachusetts--Southampton--History--19th century

Boardinghouses--Massachusetts--Westfield--History--19th century

Clapp, Anson--Estate

Fowler, Henry

Grist mills--Massachusetts--Southampton--History--19th century

Guardian and ward--Massachusetts--History--19th century

House construction--Massachusetts--Westfield--History--19th century

Millers--Massachusetts--Southampton--Economic conditions--19th century